The culture war rages on multiple fronts, and for decades, conservatives who champion traditional values have been losing ground. The battle surrounds us, and on May 20, it will appear in the polling booth camouflaged as a community library trustee election. It is a seemingly minor election with only a few local issues on the ballot. No big names or high-profile national races. People forget that the most impactful politics is local politics because it has a direct impact on our lives. If you fail to participate, you will be governed by those that do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Children, our society\u2019s most precious asset, represent the future. Conservatives believe that a child\u2019s development is best supervised by those that love them the most, their parents. Conservatives further believe that the traditional family is, in general, the best environment for child development. As policy, society should work to support the traditional family and to protect children from harm while still giving the parents the latitude to make decisions. We shouldn\u2019t create situations that expose children to danger, relying solely on parental supervision to protect them. The Hippocratic Oath\u2019s \u201cFirst, do no harm\u201d applies here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not long ago a local public library hosted a \u201cDrag Queen Story Hour\u201d where men dress as garish caricatures of women performed for young children seemingly to normalize their behaviour. This wasn\u2019t a night club for adult entertainment. This took place at a public library funded with your hard earned tax dollars. These shocking and confusing displays can have a lasting effect on developing minds, and perhaps that is the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Clean Books For Kids organization has catalogued hundreds of adult themed or sexually explicit books that were in our library networks and available directly to children, often displayed in the Children\u2019s section of the library. On the Clean Books For Kids website, many page images from these books needs to be blurred. Idaho law states that exposing children to harmful material is a crime, except for librarians, who have immunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many parents, unaware of these materials, would allow their children to browse the children\u2019s section assuming that nothing in that area would be considered harmful to minors. Many were shocked to find this was not the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On every 5 gallon bucket we require a multi-lingual label warning of possible child drowning and yet we neglect to provide any caution in exposing children to subjects that they are not developmentally equipped to process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Proponents of having these books in the children\u2019 sections claim they support \u201cparental rights\u201d and \u201cintellectual freedom\u201d while saying it is the parent who is exclusively responsible for the safety of their child in the library. They claim that moving these books into the adult section of the library is \u201ccensorship\u201d or \u201cbook burning.\u201d Curiously they also deny the very existence of these books saying that the parent\u2019s concerns are \u201cvastly overblown.\u201d So which is it? Do they claim we are burning books that don\u2019t exist?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People with common sense see that restricting children\u2019s access to these materials is an obvious precaution. The children\u2019s section of a library should contain materials that are subject and age appropriate. Most adults are stunned to learn these books were prominently displayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Parental rights should include the right for their children to not be exposed to harmful materials while visiting their local publically funded library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In July of last year a law to protect children\u2019s innocence went into effect requiring that the children\u2019s section of our libraries be a safe environment for their development. It seems ludicrous that we even need such a law, but we do. Books on sexuality or adult topics aren\u2019t burned; they\u2019re moved to adult sections, where parents can access them if they choose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But laws are not enough. We see in the headlines that the Boise Mayor is defying the law against flying a non-government LGBTQ flag over a government facility, and so we need library trustees who agree with the law to protect children and not try to work around it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the May 20 election, the choice is clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Victoria Bauman is committed to protecting your children while \u201cpreserving libraries\u2019 dynamic and supportive resources and programs for our adult community while protecting our precious children from sexually explicit materials in accordance with Idaho\u2019s \u2018Children\u2019s School and Library Protection Act\u2019 which aligns with the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s upholding of laws that restrict minors\u2019 access to illicit, obscene, and harmful content, recognizing the government’s compelling interest in safeguarding the physical and psychological well-being of children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her opponent is a college professor who ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for the Idaho House of Representatives, receiving only 29% of the votes in the general election, typical for Democrats in Kootenai County. Now identifying as Republican, she declined an interview with the local Republican Party. She has three top priorities, but none of them are the safety of children when visiting the libraries. Instead, she says \u201cThe rhetoric over so-called \u2018harmful materials\u2019 is vastly overblown.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elections have consequences, including the potential loss of your child\u2019s or grandchild\u2019s innocence. If you don\u2019t want that to happen then you need to vote. You need to join other concerned parents and grandparents and vote for Victoria Bauman, Community Library Trustee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Please vote May 20th<\/sup> for Library District – Victoria Bauman and for Hospital District – Luke Sommer, Karina Angiletta, and (Write-In) Terri Seymour. You can vote early until May 16th<\/sup> at the Elections Office 1808 N. 3rd<\/sup> St.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Voter Guide available at www.kcrcc.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s just common sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The culture war rages on multiple fronts, and for decades, conservatives who champion traditional values have been losing ground. The battle surrounds us, and on May 20, it will appear in the polling booth camouflaged as a community library trustee election. It is a seemingly minor election with only a few local issues on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":18523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[243],"tags":[1151,1162],"class_list":["post-18522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions-op-eds","tag-children","tag-library","cat-243-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18524,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18522\/revisions\/18524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}